2016-09-06 - With Friends Like These
Gotham has been a font of near chaos the last several weeks. Unknown agents were mass producing armor piercing mercury tipped bullets and selling them to anyone with the cash. Worse, cops had been often the front agents. With many of the bullets going out of the city, the feds were starting to pay attention. Nightwing, asked for a favor by Catwoman to look into some things a teenage mutant girl had told her about, was tracking a purchaser of a large number of the bullets through the streets that underneath a long jacket was wearing an 'FoH'emblazoned shirt. A federal agent that had also been watchig the exchange was quietly tailing the man as well, the pairprobably intendingto track him back to where the rest of his group was. The idea was to trace the perps to their base of operations. But one doesn't do that by just walking down a dark alley behind them. That'd be stupid. It's done with a team.. moving into position to spot the perp. But Lydia doens't -have- a team here. They figured she'd a Super Agent, she doens't need a team, right? Her partner is here, but that's her whole team. Alan.. he's good, sure. Lydia is dressed in civies, and still recovering from the bad wound that was mostly healed on her back. So she's moving a bit more tightly as she peels off from following the perp as she says into her earbud comm, "Breaking off. Alan, tell me you're picking him up." Alan and Lydia are not the only ones tailing the perp, though Nightwing is not doing it at ground level. The rooftops are his domain. He glides across them with an eye one the perp, he has not niticed the agents are also trailing him, his focus taking away from his natural observational abilities. The Friends of Humanity member is moving with the general grace of someone that has a life of having been a thug in the shadows. Even with a heavy looking suitcase, he's carrying it easily. A ballcap is worn backwards over his head mostly covering a clean shaven style of military haircut. He could almost pass for a mob enforcer doing a low key courier run as he goes in and outof the bad side of town. Occasionally subtly looking behind him, neither NIghtwing or the Feds are spotted as they tail him. "Yeah yeah. I got'im." says Alan as he steps out to move into position. "You sure you wanna try to -tag- the guy?" he asks. Her reply is a sigh, "If we get a battery onto him, I can track'im far more easily. I told you how that works, right?" she asks. Alan sighs and shrugs his shoulders, "I gotcha. So.. let's do this." He steps out in front of the perp... about a block ahead... staggering like a drunk. He stumbles into a wall and a wallet falls out of his jacket pocket... even as he staggers across the street towards a parking area. A wallet with a battery hidden in its lining. It's not a radio tracking device. It's just that Lydia can sense electrical fields, and use that to track the battery. Nightwing does notice Alan no, but just thinks he is a drunk, it is not like he is the only one on the street tonight. He also picks out the wallet falling out of the pocket and shakes his head. He does not intervene though not figureing a lost wallet is worth making his pressence known whne hte body counts on the street have started to rise. It's a quiet snatch and grab then over as Alan goes to stumble out and over in front of the man, who yelps, "Hey, watch where you're going!" Alan is otherwise given a light shove - more to get him out of the way and just assuming he's a hoeless schitzo - trying to get him to lightly stumbleand go to the side without making much of a fuss. The tracker is cleanly put on him and not a thing is noticed as he moves along then. The pair are, with some time, able to track the Friends of Humanity member over towards one of the smaller warehouses that dot Gotham. The warehouse is (assuming the Fed and Oracle backtrack on it as they track) owned by a subsidiary corporation known to be used by Greydon Creed. The building has been, even from the outside, subtly reinforced - it's much more durable than the standard 'run down warehouse' in Gotham. The man the pair is tracking gives a subtle signal then to one of the doors, and it opens to let him in. Now.. Lydia followed the electrical energy to the warehouse as Alan returned to their vehicle and pulled out his tablet. Once Lydia gave info on things like.. the address, and any pertinent surveillance information, he entered it into the database to get some research materials for her. He reads it off to her over the comm, and Lydia finds herself standing in a doorway to another building nearby, watching silently. She wants to do this right, take time... watch for patterns of coming and going. Detail work is where the important stuff is. She needs to prove that she is a skilled agent, not just a POWERED one. Cleavage or no cleavage. Jackpot. Once he has the warehouse in his sights, will try to get over ont to the roof of it and once there search for a skylight to look down inside of the bulding, seeking much the same information that Lydia is. Lydia settles back to watch. She has good cover, and they won't notice her unless they make a momve. Sensing electrical currents, seh's able to spot the cameras that are installed along the building and the alarm systems that are setup. If she had a lot of time she could probably look for holes in the array or time the cameras to get in, but that might take awhile to be able to figure out the pattern. They seem to be thoroughly setup, so likely there's an internal station inside monitoring things. The building lightly hums, a sign likely of an internal generator inside rather than relyin on the Gotham city power grid. The building isn't donig external patrols, but for Nightwing up a bit higher there are several vantage points where he can see the light glint of men covertly watching out windows with guns at the ready. The building seems almost like it's equipped for a seige -positions are setup for clear sightlines of fire over the street, the normally boarded up glass windows seem to be reinforced, and inside there are boot stomps of men going back and forth. If he does an infrared sweep, he'd see the walls are heavily reinforced - steel beam concrete lightly lined with composite ceramic. Freakishly of all. NO SKYLIGHT ON THE ROOF. NO SKYLIGHT ON THE ROOF. Eyeing the situation, Lydia communicates regularly with Alan. After all, partners need to communicate. Alan's a good partner too. He has no problem doing legwork, and letting the bulletproof one be out doin' the fieldwork. Cameras... lots of cameras. Guys with guns. Hrmm.... she'd hate to damage the infrastructure here, but.. a targeted power surge could make infiltrating the building very easy. But it would also let them know they are under attack.. ish. She really needs to learn how to make a carrier wave someday. For now however, she'll just keep watching for now. "Jesus Alan, these guys look like a bunch of redneck gun nuts in a cult thinking the gub-ment is comin' for their guns -today-... I don't see how I could get in without an all out assault. But... do we have a -warrant- for any of these guys yet?" Nightwing is on the roof he finds shadows ot hide in as he utter abotu the lack of skylight. He may have ot track down the architecht after this. he looks for any access from the main building to the roof, and settles in for a stake out. Good thing Alfred made sure he packed some protein bars. Nightwing is able to, with a bit of watching, spot what looks like an old ventilation shaft. With some timing from Oracle, he'd be able to work out a way of darting along then in and out of the camera's line of sight and the fact the men watching from the windows wiht heavy guns can't afford to be -too- blatant, and use that to sneak on into the upper floors. Meanwhile, Lydia is told that for the moment as shespeaks tothe radio there is no warrant, but given the circumstances of things if shecan confirm anything one will be gotten ASAP or given exigent circumstances of highly illegal military weapons being sold that's use are considered crimes against humanity, the department will generally interpret things in a rather lenient way as she watches. "Nothing. Copy. Maybe they'll be stupid and we'll get lucky. You know that most criminals get caught because of their own mistakes, not some Holmes style super detective." mutters Lydia... trying to start up their age old debate to pass the time. "Oh come on now. You can't tell me that a genius detective couldn't see more than the average run of the mill investigator...." replies Alan as Lydia just keeps waiting.. eyes panning to and fro. Was that movement on the roof? Well.. maybe it was just a bird, or a shadow or some such. Nightwing slips into the venteliation ducts and works his way into the building once he can find a vent large enogugh for him to get out of he waits until no one is around and then frees himself from that self inposed cage and he smiles, "so far so good." he whispers . Nightwing moves like the shadows, between Oracle helping with the timingand his own hyper-agility only the federal agent on the ground is able to take note of him as he makes his way on in. WHat he finds as he comeson in and sweeps around silently on the upper floor is the reason why the walls are so reinforced. It's defeaning within. It's a full scale armory in the building, with hundreds of guns being assembled in a full scale workshop, massive heavy weaponry, and dozens of personnel darting along. A massive 'Friends of Huamnity'banner is hung up and along the rafters, and dozens of men move aboutwith purposeful, predatory ways holding weapons. Nightwing watches the goins on, realizing this is a lot bigger then he thoght it was. He slips his mini-camera out from his belt and starts taking picures that he sends to Oracle to dcument the mess since right now it is a bit more then he cna handle by himself. Smirking, Lydia replies to Alan, "But you must admit.. the only way there would -be- any clues, is for the criminal to miss something." even as he sighs. "Clues are clues. There's always clues." he states. God, they act like they're married. This means they're good partners on the job. Either way, her eyes never leave the building... roving back and forth. She has no idea it's a massive armory. Not yet... As Nightwing goes to sneak his way around the place, he would notice a very, very large looking vault built inot the ground. Almost looking like a bunker. Definitely not the type of thing you would see aboveground. And for Lydia's luck, she would note several of the men going out of the building to have a smoke. But, carrying the heavy rifles openly loaded with mercury rounds by the look. Exigent circumstances. "Mistakes like.. smoke breaks with illegal military grade weapons." states Lydia, still debating as she lifts her camera and snaps a pic of the perps... which sends it right to Alan's tablet. "I'm moving in." she states as she pulls her handgun from its holster on her hip. The longer she can have them thinking she's normal, the better. "Wait. Shit. I'm calling it in." says Alan. He has learned by now that he really can't talk her out of anything. But he does call it in to report the situation. She does move well, striding in a fluid half duckwalk that lets her keep her handgun steady even as she moves forward. It's faster than a walk, but not quite a run. She's planning to reach the shadows of the building, avoiding the cameras.. and trying to sneak up on the group of thugs... well armed thugs. Nightwing does not know what is happening outside, so he moves towards the vault to give he a proper examination. He tells Oracle, "Can you give tme the specs on this model or is it is unique job?" Oracle's voice comes in a moment later as she scans it through the optics of Nightwing's cowl <> But there's still dozens nad dozens of men wtih guns moving around - still they haven't noticed Nightwing. The shadows some distance behind Nightwing have a someone off shape. The darkness is displaced incorrectly, but only a trained eye would notice the specter that is X-23. She trails the more experienced infiltrator by smell and sight, distinguishing him from the stink of mercury, thermite, and supremacist. The mutant erstwhile vigilante follows him from a distance, letting him do the work of finding a way in so that she can find a way around. X-23 notes the odd guns they are packing, and means to get one for herself before the night is out so that she can recover an ammo sample and maybe figure out the originator of their designs. Lydia is able to get over towards teh thugs. They haven't noticed her then as she heads towards them. And one of them looks up, gun held over his shoulder like he was trying to pose like Rambo. He looks her and grins lecherously as his companions turn with him, "So what's up babe?" It must be the shadows.. the way they play over the shapes of people. Her handgun was out and pointed towards them as the guy spoke up. "Got a light?" she asks, trying to play it cool... even as she keeps moving forward to try to place her weapon's barrel against the back of the guy -nearest- to her. "On second thought, smoking is a disgusting habit. Do you know the penalties for smoking closer than 25 feet from any entrance to a building in this town?" She pauses a heartbeat, "Seriously, do you? I have no clue. Oh.. Federal Agent. Drop your weapons. Sorry, I forgot that part." As Nightwing sweeps the area, Oracle murmurs <> X-23 moves her way stealthily through the shadows as well, darting along then. The inside cacophony of the warehouse is deafening. The heavy smell, the bright lights, all the equipment in the armory jackhammering as more guns were made.. It also made it completely easyso long as she was in stealth mode to make her way through the interior without notice at all. And then over as Lydia goes to advance over on the men then andwhips out her gun to point it at the men, one of them automatically goes toraise uphis gun to ponit at her right as his companion shoves him to drop it, "Hey!" He grunts over at his friend as the one that has his arms raising up above his head as she points it at him. The other two quickly look back and forth. But, fortunately, they do not seem dumbenough to wantto point illegal military grade weapons at a federal officer. And then over inside as Laura makes her way inside, the electric vaultsuddenly starts to glow. Bright green. A voice intones. The front of the vault makes a loud *DENT* as a punch hits the front of it. Then another. *CLANG* The men in thearea all stop, twitch, and whirl around in a panic. One of them screams< "Bastion said it wasn't supposed to do that!" On the upside, no one has a remote /clue/ that Laura is here. Or Nightwing. or Lydia out front. Ok something is definately going down and since the vault is glowing and making noise along with a mutant being detected. Nightwing has an idea of which one that might be he decides it is time to act. He moves stealthfully as he trys to ambush the men on patrol stricking quickly form whatever hiding places he cna find preppeing the way for the fight he knows is brewing now. "That's right. We wouldn't want anyone getting worked up and trying anything stupid. You know the drill. Weapons on the ground boys." says Lydia. As they comply, she jerks her head to the right, "Now, up against the wall.. -away- from the weapons." She pauses and inclines her head, "You'z boys wouldn't be carrying backup pieces wouldja?" she asks. "I mean, you'd tell me if you were, right? Cuz.. if you are, and you say you're not.. I -am- gonna find'em, and it's gonna go worse for you. Just sayin'.." she announces to the captured guards, "Oh, and comms off. Totally off. Anyone says -anything- over their comms.. and you'll be trying to find all the pieces of your missing kneecap for months." X-23's tactical armor is designed to accomodate her retractable claws, and she slides through the shadows in similar fashion to Nightwing save for a minor detail. She's quadruped, literally animal walking to hug the ground and minimize her profile in a gait that resembles an ape as she positions herself to ambush the first person to come around with scarcely a sideways glance to Nightwing. She'll reach up to pop a fistclaw into the person's knees, then strike them on the chin with her other fist for the KO when then they drop. What happens from there is another story. NIghtwing is able to drop the three men nearest to him cmopletely silently. Snap, crackle, pop. In all the screaming going on, no one has noticed a thing at all then as they drop and he darts in and out of the sahdows. Along then in them X-23 zips ina dn out. There's a dart. A cut. A slash. Three more men drop and are cut so quickly they can't even get out a scream. The pair has this littlecorner of the large warehouse to themselves with the half dozen or so men around it disarmed and dropped hard. Lydia has the men quickly dropping thier guns, "We don't got no issues with you feds! You're honest people, just doin' yerjob. So let us do our's! We have to cleanse the mutie filth from the lands!" One of them speask up, even a sthe booming eccho from inside chants out. But all of them are being fully cooperative otherwise with her instructions. All three put thier hands behind theirheads, dropping thier guns. The front end of the Vault is punched open. Two dozen or so panicked looking Friends of Humanity have thier guns raised at it as it comes out. Several of them open fire with mercury tipped bullets, which has the rest panickiing and opening fire. The thing coming out.. Pays not a whiff of attention. It seems to be humanoid. It once /was/ human. Now.. A dark purple and blaack looking cybernetic creature comes out as mercury tipped bulltes splashing poison and acid pucker it's exterior, sizzling and melting away at the metal. To Nightwing, Oracle's voice comms in <> The Prime Sentinel activates hoverjets, flying up through the air to point a wrist then over at X-23 and Nightwing. <> Flames burst out of the wrist in a wide arc at the pair! Nightwing hepfully announces to X-23, "That is something called a Prime Sentinel, I am pretty sure it wants to kill you." He rolls to the side getting singed by the fire in the process. He lauches a batarang at the thing but that will not really do much against it's outer shell. "Your -jobs- are to -not- own illegal military hardware, and to -not- attempt to put it to use against citizens of these United States. You -do- realize that, don't you?" asks Lydia as she moves up closer. "And you know what? You narrow minded bigots are what made it so that it's been less than a century wince women were allowed to -vote-. I bet you think Gays all go to hell, or that the color of someone's skin somehow makes a person better than another person. Heck, I bet you think if you life in one town it makes you better than residents of another town." She pauses and shakes her head, "Oh wait, that last one is true. I grew up in New York City. I -know- I'm better than you are. But that's because I'm not an asshole criminal bigot... now. Which one of you wants to talk about your employer and -not- go to prison for ..." and she reads off a list of charges that are totally valid and that her player couldn't come up with for the life of her. Meanwhile, she crouches, weapon still trained on them and says into her earbud. "Okay, got 3 idiots.. I mean guards out here. Might be time to get your ass up here so we can cart away the one who is going to cooperate... you know, get'im safely away from all the other BS about to go down." Complaints come back from Alan, but he's moving... She picks up the rifles by their straps.. and hefts one in her free hand. "Not a terrible balance. So... these are anti-mutant guns?" she asks, knowing totally that they're just special guns, not anti-mutant. The domino masked and zombie white eyes of X-23 go wide as a jet of flame arcs in her direction, and she chooses not to respond to Captain Obvious at just this very moment as the Prime Sentinel attacks. She takes up a pair of pistols from the dropped Friends instead, so that she can see how their ammo works on the heavy armor of the mechanical horror with dual wielded firearms! X-23 doesn't stand still while she opens fire either, she's backpedaling and staying mobile having a fair amount of weapons training under her belt courtesy of the Facility's torture. "Your -jobs- are to -not- own illegal military hardware, and to -not- attempt to put it to use against citizens of these United States. You -do- realize that, don't you?" asks Lydia as she moves up closer. "And you know what? You narrow minded bigots are what made it so that it's been less than a century wince women were allowed to -vote-. I bet you think Gays all go to hell, or that the color of someone's skin somehow makes a person better than another person. Heck, I bet you think if you life in one town it makes you better than residents of another town." She pauses and shakes her head, "Oh wait, that last one is true. I grew up in New York City. I -know- I'm better than you are. But that's because I'm not an asshole criminal bigot... now. Which one of you wants to talk about your employer and -not- go to prison for ..." and she reads off a list of charges that are totally valid and that her player couldn't come up with for the life of her. Meanwhile, she crouches, weapon still trained on them and says into her earbud. "Okay, got 3 idiots.. I mean guards out here. Might be time to get your ass up here so we can cart away the one who is going to cooperate... you know, get'im safely away from all the other BS about to go down." Complaints come back from Alan, but he's moving... She picks up the rifles by their straps.. and hefts one in her free hand. "Not a terrible balance. So... these are anti-mutant guns?" she asks, knowing totally that they're just special guns, not anti-mutant. And then.. gunshots inside, and SENTINEL speech which literally is incapable of being spoken at a volume any less than RAWR!!! "Shit." she mutters as she shakes her head, "Nevermind Alan. Hang back. I'm in a handbasket and it's getting really hot." Then.. she just points a finger at one of the thugs.. and blasts all three of them with a tazer-like stun pulse ... then searches them for like a key card or just a key to get into the building. As X-23 breaks into a full tilt dodges, the arc of white phosphorous fueled napalm blazes out in an arc from the wrist of the Sentinel, a macabre twist of a flame fueled nozzle that if it connected would melt her bones clear through. The girl is supremely fast, and her speed saves her as she darts along, going into a tuck and roll! The ammo hasimpacted along the exterior of the Prime Sentinel's shell, acid pooling on it, mercury sizzling. Slowly melting - the armor clearly has extreme resistance, but can slowly be pierced by concentratedfire - or just prolonged exposure. The bullets aren't particularly effective at direct application, however. Nightwing's batarang hits the prime Sentinel and ricochets towards one of the already melted in points of where an acid bullet had struck it. The razorrang hits, slashing through and making the crack in the armor wider. The men's yells outside over with Lydia are otherwise cut off easily enough then as the sounds of rapidfire machine guns echoout for all to hear then, and the men scramble as she stuns them. They drop like lumps. Fortunately for her a way in presents itself just as easily - some of the hired help of the Firends of Humanity come bursting out the lower door in their desperation to escape, fleeing wide. "That things onna rampage!" Back inside the Prime Sentinel faces Laura and Nightwing <> The wrist again shifts, another weapon coming out of it that looks like a small rocket nuzzle - starting to rapidfire needlegunbursts at the pair of highly accelerated shrapnel rounds at the duo as they dodged! Glancing up as the staff come charging out, Lydia opens her mouth to yell, "You're under arrest!" but.. it doesn't come out, as another group bursts out, and then another. "Seriously." she mutters as she shakes her head. She reaches down and absently removes the magazines from two of the rifles she picked up... and tucks them into her jacket pockets.. oh and she holsters her pistol. No reason to go crazy here. Plus she needs to see first hand how potent these weapons are. So she holds the door for the next person coming out... and if he's armed, she yoinks the weapon out of his hands with superhuman strength before saying, "Just run. Seriously..." before she slings the weapon.. if she took one, and then steps in through the door, her own rifle snugged against her shoulder as she comes inside. Then... after a few twists and turns... she emerges behind a giant Willy-Pete Robot. She hesitates just for a moment and mutters, "I half expect a man in a Godzilla suit to show up..." before she narrows her eyes, takes aim.. and unleashes a controlled 3 round burst of those heavy rifle rounds at the back of the robot's neck. Nightwing spots the crack, and he smiles,it is one of those scary smiles this mentor is famous for. He aks Oracle over the radio, "Anything alive in that thing?" He check to make sure before he works on his plan. For hte moment he avoids the Sentinal as he head to the weapons foundry looking for that mercury and acid. X-23 bounds in a roll, pistols gripped tight as she hits the floor to avoid flying shrapnel rather than trust her body armor. She darts in a sprint the instant she recovers diagonally towards the sentinel, keeping her distance in case of power nullification aura, and wall walks up as high as she can through sheer athletics! As she goes up, she twists to aim at the face of the mutant killing robot with one of her pistols and squeeze off a double tap before flipping off in an attempt to reach higher ground where she can bring her natural gymnastics into play. In the midst of simultaneously decrypting SHIELD files and Rand Corporation from the Department of Defense, Oracle's voice comes in <> With the Prime Sentinel's attention distracted, the shrapnel bursts blasting from the wrists of it miss Nightwing and X-23. It responds over to X-23 a moment later <> The crack widens over under the barrage from the others. It's auto-repair systems aren't working, and given Laura is still healing, so likely is the mutant power dampeners a she widens the crack that has been shot into it. Then the rounds fired by Lydia hit it in the neck. *CRACKCRACKCRACK* there is a loud sizzling as one of the weaker armored joints melts as the Sentinel's algorithms identify her as a federal agent. The PRime Directive of the unit wars within withsecondary directives - they are not supposed to target officials of the government. But she is aiding the mutant. That overrides after a few moments of hesitance. It's wrists shift once again, going to now fire outmicro-missiles as it hovers up higher in the room, blasting out over at the evasive superheroes as the small rockets fly about, explosions going higher throughout the warehouse! Darting along, the smoke and gas going up gives Nightwing perfect cover from the sensors of it, and he's able to dart around to find several of the areas in the armory where the Friends of Humanity were working at assembling thewapons - so the chemicals are spread out (but safely stored). Not knowing that there is a living, yet enslaved living being inside that thing, Lydia thinks it's just a robot. So she ducks back behind cover for any return fire... not going for the gymnastic approach. This is more the.. Mass Effect.. hide... shoot.. hide.. shoot strategy. "Stand down!" she calls out. "You are in violation of Federal Law! Assault against any citizen of the United States is unlawful!" Then she snaps out and fires another burst... Nightwing grabs some of the acid they were using in the weapons and heads back to the fray. He pours some of it on a Batarang and throws it aiming for hte crack the first one made in the sentinals armor, "Careful there is someone alive in that thing." He announces. X-23 is generally just trying to give the mechanical horror as spread out an array of targets to go after as possible. It isn't lost on her that this thing doesn't seem to be performing at the level Jean Grey spelled out for her, and does seem to be having a hard time generally. This is good, she reckons as she takes her time placing shots while staying on a fast paced movement rate. She's vaulting over cases, sliding along tables, staying on the move as as she pecks away at it. Then Nightwing puts a bit of a damper on things with his announcement. Muttering, she hits cover and slips away the pistols. They've been repurposed for the mutant cause, but she awaits an alternative to putting down that thing. The shots hit the Prime Sentinel's armor,pinging off it. Some are deflected. Some lightly penetrate and the acid and poison tips on them melts inside a bit, exposing circuitry atop. The Prime Sentinel seems not to notice, even as the flung batarang launches through the air, the stronger metallurgy of it managing to take the improvised acid coating far more effectively as the batarang lodges /in/ the thing, in the hole, and lets the acid stay immobilized and start to melt over in further. The Prime Sentinel sizzles a bit. It's form now can be seen a little easier, as the armor is pinged melted, and blasted. Female. Dark skinned. Stubs on her head likely where hair used to be. The voice is strong then as it responds to Lydia's comments < It fires more rockets at the dodging Laura, and then blasts anotherflame down at Nightwing. Oracle's voice again chimes in to Nightwing Sighing, Lydia shakes her head. "There is no higher authority. Check your files. You..." Lydia pauses as she hears that there's someone in there. Then she spots some of the skin. Damn.. she drops the rifle and sighs. "You are a citizen. If you are in control, then you are breaking the law. If you can hear me. I am sorry for this. It's going to hurt..." she pauses, "A lot." And then.. fuck it. She comes around the corner, crackling with raw power as she points both hands at the cyborg.. and sends a stream of electricity towards it. She's trying to control it's behavior so that it plays along the surface.. and doesn't electrify the human being's heart. She wants to short out the robotic parts but even so.. that's going to heat things up, HOT... for the pilot. Nightwing moves to be in front of the sentinel, "Agent Karima Shapandar, you enforeced laws and protected your countyr, you know this is not proper behaviour, no not listne ot the voiced in your head, but listen ot your heart, do you really want to go down fighting those who are also sworn to uphold the laws and what is right? You were a hero before you disappeared, be a hero now fight the machine controlling you. Shut down, we can help you." He then adds, "Standing down is the only way to way to ever get to see your homeland again." He watches Lydia do her thing hoping that between he mechanical and is motivation efforts the problem cna be solved without bloodshed. X-23 hrmphs when she hears the name of the person being controlled within the Sentinel. She utters,"Lady Deathstrike. She's murderer and terrorist before made Sentinel." She would know, she put her down in Metropolis and took her arm for a trophy. She rises as Lydia does her work and Nightwing addresses the woman. After the blasting, she rises from her cover, staring down the machine in case it's fixing to be round two. Deep down, part of her pities her. It isn't all that different from the control of the Facility. The talk from Nightwing has the killer cyborg stop for just a half second. A light twitch goes through one eye then as the arm stops it's swiveling then to continue to go and try to blast at them once more. But that's just enough to let Lydia blast over at her full force. The Prime Sentinel screams as electricity floods it. It screams and howls in electric agony and falls to the ground. A voice comes out. Vaguely human. Female. "Please.. Stop.. Kill.. Can't.." The face twitches again, even as electricity sizzles through it's systems as whatever is left of the human inside tries to fight with it. A war for control of one's own body. That she is losing. Swinging to the shoulders as thesizzling Sentinel rises up go a set of rocket launchers, getting ready to blanket the area as the body continues to twitch, fighting itself. X-23 charges in as the rockets raise, not giving the cyborg a chance to devastate the area. Blades come out, if the machine is in control she means to surgically remove it piece by piece starting with the weapons! She'll dive at the cybernetically manipulated woman fist claws first Logan style, her goal is to claw away those rockets before they can do too much damage, then work her way to the rest of her weapons hoping her adamantium is up to the task against whatever her parts are made of. Ever hear the term... lightning fast? Lightning speed? Greased Lightning? Well, that last one has nothing to do with having an FBI agent covered in lard. Seriously.. not even crisco. But anyway, Lydia paused when she heard the voice in there. But then as the thing rises up, her reflexes kick in. She aims full power blasts at the launchers... and as she closes her eyes for a long blink, she makes a decision.. and spreads the arc over the PRIME SENTINEL... in theory, enough to stop a beating heart. But definitely enough to seep into the brain via any implants feeding from the suit. "I'm sorry.." she murmurs softly as she blasts. She's like a female Palpatine, except she's not shriveled.. okay and she's not evil... okay and she's not firing purple lightning, hers is more yellowish - orange. Okay she's nothing like Palpatine. But she's made the -choice- to kill something that she feels will -only- stop if it's taken down for good. It's a cop's nightmare, being forced to kill someone before they can -be- killed by them. Especially.. .someone potentially innocent. Okay, so she heard X-23... not so innocent. Nightwing turns to Lydia, "I have an idea," then he notices her acting in a manner he was about to suggest, "Alright at the count of thirty I will begin CPR hopefully that was enough time to keep the AI out of commision, can't risk waiting longer then that." then unless stopped he will do just that. And Laura charges forwards. Arching through the air over with adamantium claws extended. A self-propelled arc of blades to slash, skewer, and disembowel. For Lydia, there is every cop's nightmare in front of her - being made to kill innocents. Blissfully unaware. Now openly so. Fighting yourself while seeing yourself turned against everything you ever stood for. The electricity blasts through the air, arching over right as Laura stabs over into the launchers. There is a scream as Laura's claws even as they dig over into rocket launches act as a natural conductor, whileshielding Laura from the worst of the electric blast, directly feeding all that energy directly over inot the Prime Sentinel's systems. A scream of raw agony as electric vocals of the Sentinel war with the being underneath. The electricty arcs. And falls. The Sentinel at this point is almost just a torso left, limbs akimbo, one rocket launcher on.. A fist rises up from it. Karima throws Laura off her.. Physically yanking her rocket launcher from hers houlder to point at herself as the rockets slam to her own torso. *BOOM* X-23 isn't in any shape to protest getting shoved off of her, but she does mutter feebly,"Bitch isn't getting...her arm...back..." She exhales with that, retracting her claws and generally just letting her healing factor do its thing. Her factor has work to do, she's likely been tagged a time or two by shrapnel and not realized it. This is in addition to the electrifying punishment she just withstood. She's not in the best shape. And.. Lydia was ready to kill this person, but Nightwing just reminded her of something she trained for! She surges forward just barely super fast. I know, she doesn't blur or anything. She's just supercharged and all. She skids to a stop on her knees by the now.. blown up cyborg and power is already flowing to her hands. "Don't touch her." she says, "Oh.. CLEAR!" she annouces as she brings her hands down towards the chest of the being inside.... touching and trying to see if she can get the heart going. She doesn't have an EKG but she's going to try by instinct and checking for a pulse. Nightwing stays back once Lydia is in motion and he lets her handle the task of reviving the human part of the Sentinal. He stand back watching then he looks over to Laura, "Are you alright?" He moves closer to the mutant ot check on her wounds. There is an unconscious human female with several cybernetic prosthetics in extreme damage. As LYdia goes to blast a raw current of energy through her heart and her lungs,she spasms. Then breathes. Very, very slowly. But she hsa a pulse. Even left as little more than a torso with shattered electronics and acid dripping down her. The burning Friends of Humanity banner turns to ash thenand is blown off in the breeze. Over NIghtwing's comm, Oracle's voice chimes The building's reinforcement has kept it mostly intact. Outside, most of the fleeing Friends of Humanity are being arrested by FBI Agents that are swarming the exterior. From afar, Catwoman figures this is blatant enough given they were arrested by the feds with tons of evidence and had a weapon of mass destruction on hand the FoH can't quite wheedle their way outof this and most of them will stand trial and their ops are busted. :) Catwoman says, "Your call on where to 'send' Karima, but I'd just note given her origins might not be the best idea to let the DoD 'get' her (Given the PRime Sentinels were originally a government project)" The bladed mutant girl is healing well as ever, her wounds are literally mending right before his eyes. She's relaxed for the moment, controling her breathing so that her factor works as quickly as possible. Within a few moments, her eyes flutter open and she replies,"I'm fine. She should probably go with me, her weapons are anti mutant. Can call, have picked up within hour." She nods curtly at this after sitting up.